Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission employees, from left, Georgann Kramer, Sue Bacon, and Raleigh Jones count votes in an election to decide whether 5,900 state security and public safety workers would break away from the Wisconsin State Employees Union Thursday. Ballots were counted at Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission office in Madison.

Written by

Steven Verburg
Wisconsin State Journal

Prison guards voted Thursday to break away from the once-powerful Wisconsin State Employees Union, already wobbly at the knees after a 2011 state law effectively ended public sector union rights.

The vote was 1,548-1,108 for the split.

"From the governor's office on down, everybody is watching this to see if this is the first domino to fall," said Brian Cunningham, a guard at Waupun Correctional Institution who is interim president of the new union, the Wisconsin Association for Correctional Law Enforcement (WACLE). ...